High-Throughput Screening is the state-of-the-art for process development and optimization in the biopharmaceutical industry, enabling process understanding and accelerating development and implementation. Chromatographic processes still represent the majority of operating costs for the production of several products, such as monoclonal antibodies. Optimal processes rely on several parameters and a good characterization of protein adsorption behavior is paramount, which can be derived from proper characterization of protein adsorption isotherms. The cost of the materials and sample demand technologies that can provide valuable and accurate data at a minimal both time and costs.<br/>While liquid-handling stations have been the go-to technology for industry, microfluidics poses as an attractive alternative to further miniaturize assays. While both technologies offer miniaturization options, microfluidics reduces materials’ consumption manifold, even when compared to liquid-handling stations. Liquid-handling stations offer a great automation, reducing human-related errors to the maximum. Together, they simultaneously represent modern tools that allow for low sample consumption and fast data generation, essential for the screening and evaluation of different adsorbents and operating conditions.<br/>In this work we present a novel microfluidic chip for the determination of protein adsorption isotherms in batch uptake mode. Protein isotherms determined using microfluidics are compared to those obtained via liquid-handling stations and a cost assessment for both techniques is presented. An assessment of the key features of each technology is finally provided, to further evaluate the implementability of both methodologies.

Microfluidics and liquid-handling stations: Comprehensive comparison for chromatographic high-throughput process development

ACS Fall 2021

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